Sparky's Tactics And The New Way We Play

As you all know, we have now scored 3 goals from set pieces in our last 3 games - Tevez vs Palace, Adebayor vs Portsmouth and Richards vs Arsenal.

This is excellent news, as we posed virtually no aerial threat from set pieces over the last few seasons. However, we now have 6 or 7 players (this is when all fully fit!) who are a real threat in the air - it brings a whole new dimension to our game.

One of the season's great successes is our ability and will to close down the opposition.

If you watch the 'Big 4,' you will notice that they all work for each other as a unit and this starts with the strikers.

It's very important to do this as it puts your opposition under pressure and is a must when you are playing away from home.

In the past City have let other teams come on to them but they are now giving the opposition no room to move the ball around.

Winning when it Matters:

This is probably the most important thing of City's three new factors. For instance, lets take the Arsenal game last weekend.

When Arsenal equalised, Hughes brought on Martin Petrov in an attempt to win the game. City then had a purple patch and scored 3 goals in 12 minutes.

However, if the score would have gone 1-1 last season then I am sure we would have lost that game. The momentum was with Arsenal and they would have taken it, but this season things are different. We now have players who have bags of Premiership experience. They know what is needed when things start to go a little pear-shaped.

The Wolves game was another example; they were unlucky not to come away from the game with a draw. The momentum changed in the second half in Wolves favour and they came at City with vengeance - hitting the bar.

Once again, had that been last season we would probably have drawn the game.

I can remember from last season the anxiety that gripped the City supporters when we entered the last 20 minutes only 1-0 up. We looked vulnerable; we never looked as if we could have held on.

Here are two examples of just that from games vs the 'Big 4' last season:

Chelsea at home and Liverpool at home.

We lost both matches after taking the lead. In the Chelsea match Robinho scored to make it 1-0 but from then on City were given a midfield master class by Chelsea who went on to win the game 1-3.

The Liverpool game also saw us take the lead with goals from Ireland and Garrido. Torres then inspired a Liverpool comeback that saw them win the game 2-3 in the dying seconds.

- Going into today's Manchester derby, we know that City's new found resilience will see us win many more games than we will lose this season.

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Comments

I think it is true that we now are a threat at Set Pieces, but the main thing is that we have the belief that we can go out there and win matches. As BW say we wont win everyone of them but we believe we can. It was better last week when the Gooners equalised and we held on and then upped a gear, in past season we would have just fallen back and hoped we could hang on for a draw, which would have been a good result, but no longer is that the case.

Well we also got better at set pieces on Wednesday night with 2 more goals from corners. Its good being decent at set pieces as they have been a waste of time for the last few seasons with both poor delivery and no real threat from the personal that was at our disposal.